How did the same dress get on the covers of W, Elle and Vogue?

The covers of the August editions of W, Elle and British Vogue. Photograph: Composite

Getting yourself on three glossy magazine covers in the same month is quite some feat. But that's exactly what has happened this month. Only the success hasn't been won by a publicity-hungry Hollywood star, but a dress. An appliqued Miu Miu dress, to be precise, costing between £1,515 and £3,210. It simultaneously stars on the August covers of British Vogue, UK Elle and the US super-glossy, W.

If we are going to be nerdishly picky about this, it isn't exactly the same dress on all three publications. The tangerine version that Danish model Freja Beha Erichsen wears on the Vogue cover is appliqued on the shoulders and carries two patch pockets on the front. That version is also modelled by the actor Eva Mendes on the cover of W, but the British Vogue dress is much fancier and made from lilac lace.

So is this the print equivalent of turning up to a posh party wearing the same outfit as someone else? Vogue, alas, did not want to comment. But Lorraine Candy, editor of Elle, wisely takes the philosophical approach. "You have to take these things in your stride," she says, but admits that "obviously I'd rather it wasn't on a major rival".

Surprisingly, this sort of cover multiplicity is rare. Actors frequently chalk up multiple dresses in the same month, but not magazine covers. There are good reasons for this. Fashion press officers work hard to achieve a delicate UN-style political balance between glossies to make sure that these kinds of overlaps don't happen. "Usually press offices are pretty good at making sure we don't get the same dress as our rivals," says Candy.

Given this, the Miu Miu hat-trick would have been very hard to predict. An element of luck is always involved in a cover shoot. Huge volumes of clothes are taken along – even more if a celebrity is involved, because frankly there is no way of telling what the star in question will wear, whether it will fit her and whether her agent was lying about her sizes or not.

What is even more unlikely though is that Miu Miu's cover lottery win is going to be repeated in real life. At those prices it's a safe bet that this "snap" moment won't be repeated on the street.